SOS! Need help with my FFR MkII - hood hinges?

[NorthStr99]

Hello everyone -

I've got a nice MkII I bought about a year ago, totally unaware of the Cobra replica world. Talk about a fast education (no pun intended)! Anyway, the MkII's suffered from a very poor FFR hood hinge design, with the hood attached by two cheesy little hinge brackets at the front lip of the hood, which were apparently made out of weak 3/8" tube steel from what I could tell, judging from the subsequent breaks and even poor-er quality repair job made by someone who must have had a buddy with a welder in his garage.

Anyway, the crappy repair welds broke, so I took them to a local machine shop and asked them to reconstruct the hinges with solid bar instead of the aforementioned tube steel, while keeping the original geometry. The hinges were rebuilt, but the new geometry was not identical to the original, and hence the hood will now NOT fit properly on the car again, no matter how I shim or adjust the hinges. Unfortunately some of the original parts were used in the rebuilt ones, so the originals no longer exist to compare.

FFR is being monumentally unhelpful in helping me solve the problem, short of suggesting that I buy a MkIII hood with a much-superior hinge config. I had planned to sell the car and so do not want to sink another $1500-2000 into it just because the damned hood hinges were too cheesy for words. Does anyone know where I can get some original MkI or MkII hood hinges, or at least the specs for them? FFR wouldn’t even give me the orginal specs so I could have new ones made. I’m pretty disgusted with them, to say the least, and have lost faith in their supposed dedication to customer service.

On another note, does anyone know where or even if the MkII’s have any identifying chassis numbers/marks anywhere on them? I am the third owner and do not have the original mfr’s certificate of origin.

Anyway, thanks folks, I hope someone out there can help!